In the early years of the World-Wide-Web, most content providers were not concerned about sharing content with other web-sites. Today, the trend is that web-sites are increasingly interdependent and many rely upon integrating information content that originates on another web-site. Such content might include news feeds, current event listings, etc. End-users are also pulling these news/information feeds into various software applications running on numerous devices across different communications networks.
Sharing information content for distribution in many different channels on the World-Wide-Web is called “syndication.” Web syndication is a form of syndication in which a section of a web-site is made available for other sites to use. For example, news information, weblogs, etc. may be syndicated. As is known in the art, a “weblog” is a web application that contains periodic ordered postings of information on a common web-page. Weblogs include individual diaries, political, consumer, commercial and other types of information.
One problem with sharing content is that users may be interested in many different websites whose content changes on an unpredictable schedule. Repeatedly checking each website to see if there is any new content can be very tedious. Electronic mail (e-mail) notification of changes was an early solution to this problem. Unfortunately, such email notifications from multiple websites were usually disorganized are often mistaken for spam.
Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a family of content distribution and republication (i.e., syndication) protocols primarily used by news sites and weblogs.
The Rich Site Summary (RSS) is also know as RSS 0.91, 0.92 and RSS 2.x. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) Site Summary (also RSS) is based on Netscape's RSS 0.90, which uses the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Resource Description Framework Standard known as RSS 1.x.
RSS provides a lightweight eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format designed for sharing electronic information such as news headlines and other electronic content on the World-Wide-Web. RSS was first developed by Netscape to drive channels for the Netscape Netcenter.
RSS defines an XML grammar for sharing electronic information. Each RSS text file contains both static information about a web-site, plus dynamic information about new electronic content, all surrounded by matching start and end tags.
Each RSS channel can contain up to fifteen items. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.
RSS was developed built on the idea that a content provider provides an RDF XML page (i.e., RSS feed), and other web users can choose to subscribe to that page. Any time the RDF XML page is updated (e.g., a webblog, etc.) an item to the RSS feed. More information on RSS can be found on the World-Wide-Wed at the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) “blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss.”
“ATOM” is an XML-based file format intended to allow lists of related information, known as “feeds,” to be synchronized between publishers and consumers. Feeds are composed of a number of items, known as “entries”, each with an extensible set of attached metadata. For example, each entry has a title. More information about ATOM is available on the Internet at the URL “atomenabled.org.”
There are several problems associated with using RSS, ATOM or other protocols to provide web syndication. One problem is that most RSS or ATOM channels are associated with a single URL. There is generally no information available about the person or machine using the RSS or ATOM information via the URL.
Another problem is that user information is typically not collected from use of RSS or ATOM channels. Such user information could be used for targeted advertising by providers of the RSS or ATOM channels and/or a distribution partner using the feed under agreement/license with the original provider.
Another problem is that RSS or ATOM aggregators or readers typically provide only basic functionality to a user that includes obtaining and displaying RSS or ATOM channel feeds.
There have been attempts to solve some of the problems associated with RSS, ATOM and other information feeds providing syndicating information. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,934,702 that issued to Faybishenko, et al., entitled “Method and system of routing messages in a distributed search network” teaches “a system and method for distributing search requests in a network. The system and method may also route search responses. Network nodes operating as consumer or requesting nodes generate the search requests. Nodes operating as hubs are configured to route the search requests in the network. Individual nodes operating as provider nodes receive the search request and in response may generate search results according to their own procedures and return them. Communication between nodes in the network may use a common query protocol. Hub nodes may resolve the search requests to a subset of the provider nodes in the network, for example by matching search requests with registration information from nodes. Search results may be customized at various stages in the network.”
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 20050144437 that was published by Ransom et al., entitled “System and method for assigning an identity to an intelligent electronic device,” teaches power management architecture for an electrical power distribution system, or portion thereof, is disclosed. The architecture includes multiple intelligent electronic devices (“IED's”) distributed throughout the power distribution system to manage the flow and consumption of power from the system. The IED's are linked via a network to back-end servers. Security mechanisms are further provided which protect and otherwise ensure the authenticity of communications transmitted via the network in furtherance of the management of the distribution and consumption of electrical power by the architecture. In particular, public key cryptography is employed to identify components of the architecture and provide for secure communication of power management data among those components. Further, certificates and certificate authorities are utilized to further ensure integrity of the security mechanism.”
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 20050160065 that was published by Seeman entitled “System and method for enhancing resource accessibility,” teaches “a resource accessibility engine according to the present invention uses a resource-specific knowledge base and user preferences to convert a resource into an improved accessibility resource. Examples of a resource include a website, document, webpage image file, multimedia file, auditory file or any other text and/or non-text record. The resource-specific knowledge includes content and formatting information that reduces ambiguities, translates implied information into explicit information and improves the accessibility of the resource content. The user preferences represent the physical capabilities of the user's access device, and the user's semantic and personal preferences for how content should be displayed. An editor uses an annotation wizard to create the resource-specific knowledge base based on the original resource.”
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 20050165615 that was published by Minar entitled “Embedding advertisements in syndicated content,” teaches “Incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner is described. Syndicated material e.g., corresponding to a news feed, search results or web logs, are combined with the output of an automated ad server. An automated ad server is used to provide keyword or content based targeted ads. The ads are incorporated directly into a syndicated feed, e.g., with individual ads becoming items within a particular channel of the feed. The resulting syndicated feed including targeted ads is supplied to the end user, e.g., as a set of search results or as a requested web log. Embedding of targeted ads into syndicated feeds and/or user response to the embedded ads is be tracked in an automated manner for billing. The automated targeting and insertion process allows ads to be kept current and timely while the original feed may be considerably older.”
U.S. Patent Application No. 20050160167 that was published by Cheng entitled “Rich profile communication with notifications,” teaches “a rich communication profile system with notifications. The system is a feedback mechanism that utilizes rich content, e.g., multimedia content, as one or more indicators that represent the status of a remote user. The system includes a state component that receives information relating to state of at least one entity. A notifications component dynamically renders at least one personalized graphical indicia representative of the entity's state. The entity can be a person, group of people, component, place, and object.
However, these attempts still do not solve all of the problems associated with using RSS and ATOM. Thus, it is desirable to solve some of the problems associated with using RSS, ATOM or other protocols used to provide syndicated information feeds.